16 ideas
| 6806 | Do not multiply entities beyond necessity [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. | |
| From: William of Ockham (works [1335]) | |
| A reaction: This is the classic statement of Ockham's Razor, though it is not found in his printed works. It appears to be mainly aimed at Plato's Theory of Forms. It is taken to refer to types of entities, not numbers. One seraph is as bad as a hundred. |
| 10633 | 'Some critics admire only one another' cannot be paraphrased in singular first-order [Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: The Geach-Kaplan sentence 'Some critics admire only one another' provably has no singular first-order paraphrase using only its predicates. | |
| From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be a choice of either going second-order (picking out a property), or going plural (collectively quantifying), or maybe both. |
| 10638 | A pure logic is wholly general, purely formal, and directly known [Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: The defining features of a pure logic are its absolute generality (the objects of discourse are irrelevant), and its formality (logical truths depend on form, not matter), and its cognitive primacy (no extra-logical understanding is needed to grasp it). | |
| From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This strikes me as very important. The above description seems to contain no ontological commitment at all, either to the existence of something, or to two things, or to numbers, or to a property. Pure logic seems to be 'if-thenism'. |
| 10635 | Second-order quantification and plural quantification are different [Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: Second-order quantification and plural quantification are generally regarded as different forms of quantification. | |
| From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 2) |
| 10641 | Traditionally we eliminate plurals by quantifying over sets [Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: The traditional view in analytic philosophy has been that all plural locutions should be paraphrased away by quantifying over sets, though Boolos and other objected that this is unnatural and unnecessary. | |
| From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 5) |
| 10640 | Instead of complex objects like tables, plurally quantify over mereological atoms tablewise [Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: Plural quantification can be used to eliminate the commitment of science and common sense to complex objects. We can use plural quantification over mereological atoms arranged tablewise or chairwise. | |
| From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Hossack and van Ingwagen] |
| 10636 | Plural plurals are unnatural and need a first-level ontology [Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: Higher-order plural quantification (plural plurals) is often rejected because plural quantification is supposedly ontological innocent, with no plural things to be plural, and because it is not found in ordinary English. | |
| From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: [Summary; he cites Boolos as a notable rejector] Linnebo observes that Icelandic contains a word 'tvennir' which means 'two pairs of'. |
| 10639 | Plural quantification may allow a monadic second-order theory with first-order ontology [Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: Plural quantification seems to offer ontological economy. We can pay the price of a mere first-order theory and then use plural quantification to get for free the corresponding monadic second-order theory, which would be an ontological bargain. | |
| From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: [He mentions Hellman's modal structuralism in mathematics] |
| 10643 | We speak of a theory's 'ideological commitments' as well as its 'ontological commitments' [Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers speak about a theory's 'ideological commitments' and not just about its 'ontological commitments'. | |
| From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 5.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a third strategy for possibly evading one's ontological duty, along with fiddling with the words 'exist' or 'object'. An ideological commitment to something to which one is not actually ontologically committed conjures up stupidity and dogma. |
| 10637 | Ordinary speakers posit objects without concern for ontology [Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: Maybe ordinary speakers aren't very concerned about their ontological commitments, and sometimes find it convenient to posit objects. | |
| From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the whole truth about the ontological commitment of ordinary language. We bring abstraction under control by pretending it is a world of physical objects. The 'left wing' in politics, 'dark deeds', a 'huge difference'. |
| 22132 | Species and genera are individual concepts which naturally signify many individuals [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: In his mature nominalism, species and genera are identified with certain mental qualities called concepts or intentions of the mind. Ontologically they are individuals too, like everthing else, ...but they naturally signify many different individuals. | |
| From: William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Claude Panaccio - William of Ockham p.1056 | |
| A reaction: 'Naturally' is the key word, because the concepts are not fictions, but natural responses to encountering individuals in the world. I am an Ockhamist. |
| 10634 | Predicates are 'distributive' or 'non-distributive'; do individuals do what the group does? [Linnebo] |
| Full Idea: The predicate 'is on the table' is 'distributive', since some things are on the table if each one is, whereas the predicate 'form a circle' is 'non-distributive', since it is not analytic that when some things form a circle, each one forms a circle. | |
| From: Øystein Linnebo (Plural Quantification [2008], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: The first predicate can have singular or plural subjects, but the second requires a plural subject? Hm. 'The rope forms a circle'. The second is example is not true, as well as not analytic. |
| 21906 | Political theory should not focus on the state or economy, but on the small scale of power [Deleuze/Guattari, by May] |
| Full Idea: Liberals who focus on the state and Marxists who focus on the economy are macropolitical theorists. They overlook the small elements that comprise our political lives. To understand how we are constructed and power works we must turn to the smaller scale. | |
| From: report of G Deleuze / F Guattari (A Thousand Plateaus [1980]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 4.04 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be precisely in tune with the ideas of Foucault. I'm not sure that a study of power within the family or the office throws much light on macropolitics. How the micro intrudes into the micro seems more interesting. |
| 19381 | The past has ceased to exist, and the future does not yet exist, so time does not exist [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: Time is composed of non-entities, because it is composed of the past which does not exist now, although it did exist, and of the future, which does not yet exist; therefore time does not exist. | |
| From: William of Ockham (works [1335], 6:496), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Nominalist' | |
| A reaction: I've a lot of sympathy with this! I favour Presentism, so the past is gone and the future is yet to arrive. But we have no coherent concept of a present moment of any duration to contain reality. We are just completely bogglificated by it all. |
| 8010 | William of Ockham is the main spokesman for God's commands being the source of morality [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: The most notable philosopher who makes God's commandment the basis of goodness, rather than God's goodness a reason for obeying him, is William of Occam. | |
| From: William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Either view has problems. Why choose God to obey? Obey anyone who is powerful? But how do you decide that God is good? How do we know the nature of God's commands, or the nature of God's goodness? Etc. |
| 16679 | Even an angel must have some location [William of Ockham, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Ockham dismisses the possibility of non-location out of hand, remarking that even an angel has some location. | |
| From: report of William of Ockham (works [1335]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 14.4 |